Newsletter #23 for October 18th, 2022

Howdy folks!

It’s Tommy time! Community Liaison ThatTommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty! Sorry to keep y’all waiting, it’s tricky getting all the report-worthy news together in a timely manner!

Joe has hopefully been enjoying his vacation so far, so it’s my turn to write the newsletter again. Let’s see what’s in the news!

Pinball FX3 Tournaments

Space Station results

Another victory goes to Forgantly, how stellar!

Space station leaderboard. 1st: Forgantly. 2nd: Mr_Hardluck. 3rd: Laxmi13. 4th: WrexVerdi. 5th: RIX5.13. 6th: JoeHills. 7th: ButterflyGirlKMC. 8th: Kindalas

9th: MeinsEins. 10th: Parker. 11th: NJCoffeeJunkie. 12th: Winter83. 13th: marwood7

Doctor Dude and his Excellent Ray results

Double congrats to Forgantly for the win, most excellent my dude!

1st: forgantly. 2nd: WrexVerdi. 3rd: Mr_Hardluck. 4th: ChloeTGAP. 5th: ButterflyGirlKMC. 6th: Parker. 7th: NJCoffeeJunkie. 8th: RIX5.13

9th: Laxmi13. 10th: JoeHills

This week: FunHouse!

If you’re like me you’re a dummy who’s waited too long to try out the pinball challenges, come join in the fun this week in FunHouse! Details to join can be found in Activity Sign-ups > #weekly-pinball-challenges

Minecraft Server News

DS9

Our first parade float building contest following the B’hala build contest is quickly approaching! Join us on Saturday, October 29th at 10am US Central Time to participate in our Halloween parade, hosted by Outpost Not Kansas!

There are still 4 spaces available for folks to reserve a spot, otherwise feel free to ask to join somebody else! Sign ups can be found in Activity Sign Ups > #oct-29-halloween-parade

DS9 Petitions

Our September petitions for the flagship vanilla server was held on the 1st of the month, if you’d like to see how that went you can do so over here.

The next petitions will be held on November 5th at noon US Central time.

Everstorm

There aren’t any obituaries to report for the week, phew!

The server will be resetting today, October 18th. This is an exciting iteration, as we are test driving some server side mods that would serve the same function as plugins such as CoreProtect. Be sure to keep an eye on the Realms and Servers > #everstorm-october-2022 channel!

Modded 1.19 Fall

After many discussions and testing, Toxxic’s modded server has launched! Some of the features include the ability to request to teleport to another player, additional advancements, concrete slabs and more! There are even mods developed by Toxxic himself, so be sure to check it out!

You can find the full mod list and see how folks have been progressing in Realms and Servers > #modded-1dot19-fall-next

Vanillish

Trick or treat! Server operator Yirggzmb has certainly done a cool trick to give players on the Vanillish server a treat! In celebration of this spooky month Yirggy has declared that sweets are actually good for you! Cookies, cake, and pie will all fulfill more hunger and saturation until the end of the month!

You can join Joe’s discord and gain access to all the servers by becoming a Minecraft Player tier patron over at Joe’s Patreon.

HermitCraft Episodes

Meet-ups and Conventions

Joe held a few impromptu meetups over the course of October, hopefully all the folks able to make it had fun! If you’d like the opportunity to see Joe with a scheduled time there are a few conventions he’s planning to attend below.

Upcoming conventions

So long for now…

Thanks to everybody who reads the newsletter, it means a lot! I hope y’all have been enjoying the more relaxed vibes of vacation mode in the discord, we appreciate being able to have it!

This has been TommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty.

See you around!

Petitions September 2022

Deep Slate Nine Vanilla SMP

  • Gritmonger presents a crate of self-sealing stembolts and requests 7 tessipates of land.
    • Joe asks for where he would like the land
    • Gritmonger instead negotiates to receive 4 squid eggs
    • Joe grants 4 to Gritmonger, and 1 to everyone in attendance
  • Kindalas states he and Seanard lost a shulker box of nether stars due to a server glitch and would like ot request something in it’s place
    • Joe first grants him two crates of self-sealing stembolts and then asks how many nether stars fit in a shulker box
    • Kindalas states 1,728
    • Joe grants 1,729 nether stars to Kindalas

Newsletter #22 for September 26th, 2022

Howdy, fall!

It’s autumn! The leaves are changing, and so is your face. I see that smile! Yay!

Staff Roles page added to the site!

I took some time today to write up descriptions and responsibilities for the different roles of folks on staff here.

Feel free to check that out at https://joehills.net/staff-roles/

Discord prune complete, vacation mode active!

I’ve restructured the Discord and enabled vacation mode per the plan outlined in Newsletter #21.

The only deviations from the plan were:

  • Had to create a new category called “Yet Another Zone of Archived Rooms” after the first one filled up. I didn’t know categories could even get full, but live and learn, I guess.
  • Decided to keep the Friend Codes room writable to facilitate activity in the #players-wanted room.

Thanks for your patience while we give all this a try! I already feel like I’ve got some extra brain cycles free, and hope to re-invest them in the future of this community and my creative work over the course of the next month.

Minecraft Server News

Upcoming petitions for DS9 & modded:

If you need something, show up and let us know!

Our next two server petitions sessions are scheduled for:

  • October 1st at 2pm US Central Time
  • November 5th at noon US Central time.

DS9: Halloween parade sign-ups now open!

As of this writing, we have about half the parade float slots filled for the October 29th Halloween parade build contest.

Our guest judge will be Halloween enthusiast and expert Lucy Western voice actor BadgerSpanner!

Sign up now in Activity-Sign-Ups > #oct-29-halloween-parade

Toxxic’s Modded Server Progress

Toxxic sent me the world configuration and mods list for his upcoming server, and I will be setting up a test world for him to review this week.

If all goes well, we’ll be launching soon!

Signs of Autumn!

Tennessee Game Days Fall 2022

I had a great time at Tennessee Game Days last weekend! You can see photos and my thoughts on some of the games I played in this series of tweets:

Tennessee Game Days Spring 2023 is coming up March 3–5th!

The best way to be alerted when tickets go on sale is to sign up for their newsletter at: https://tngamedays.com/email.html. Tickets sell out quickly, so keep an eye on that!

We’ve also got a channel for folks looking to coordinate their TGD travel  on our Patreon Discord under Meet-ups > #mar-3-5-tgd-spring-2023.

Weekly Pinball Tournaments

Tales of the Arabian Nights results

Congratulations to Forgantly! Tales will be told of his victory!

A screenshot of the tournament leaderboard for Tales of the Arabian Nights for September 2022. 1st place: forgantly. 2nd: Mr_Hardluck. 3rd: ButterfyGirlKMC. 4th: WrexVerdi. 5th: Laxmi13. 6th: RIX5.13. 7th: NJCoffeeJunkie. 8th: JoeHillsLeaderboard continues... 9th place: Chloe. 10th: parker. 11th: Marwood. 12th: MisterLantz

This week: Space Station!

It’s an old-school space-themed pinball table by Bally Williams. Tommy says it is out of this world, but I don’t think he has actually played it. Find out for yourself! Tournament details are in Activity Sign-ups > #weekly-pinball-tournament

Meet-ups and Conventions

No confirmations yet on the October meet-ups, that’s in my queue for this week. Here’s the conventions I will definitely be at, though:

Upcoming conventions

Upcoming streams

Expect a lot of bonus streams the next two weeks in advance of my trip. I can’t promise when they’ll be, as I’m working around the royal collars, but I have a lot to get done!

Until next time y’all…

This has been Joe Hills from Nashville, TN. Thanks to ThatTommyBoii for his help as always!

Keep adventuring!

Newsletter #21 for September 19th, 2022

Howdy, y’all…

Joe Hills here, writing as I always do from Nashville, Tennessee. We have a lot to cover, so let’s metaphorically grab our ink blasters and transform into squids to fill our tanks! Or just read.

Quarterly Community Meeting Results

Tommy both filmed and took detailed minutes on this quarter’s community meeting, and you can find those at: https://joehills.net/2022-q3-meeting-minutes/

Here’s the high level overview of the conclusions of each of the six agenda items:

1. Discord Prune scheduled for September 22nd

Every few years (number TBD at a future meeting), we’ll prune down the number of channels heavily, with the intent to add some back at the next quarter’s meeting. Some Discord features that have been enabled by default in the interim will also be reviewed and possibly curtailed, such as allowing file uploads.

To discuss and provide feedback in general about the pruning, please use the Joe Hills Meta > #feedback-structure channel.

To make specific proposals for consideration at the next Quarterly meeting to be held on January 21st, 2023 at 11am US Central Time, please post those in Joe Hills Meta > #next-quarter-new-business so that Tommy can ensure they are added to the agenda.

The categories and channels that will persist after this year’s pruning are:

  1. Activity-sign-ups
  2. All-specific-except-for-general
    1. 911-emergency resources
    2. actual-rules
    3. current_events
    4. feels
    5. general
    6. identity
    7. introductions
    8. live_event_chat
    9. small_victories
  3. Consume
      1. Arts and entertainment
      2. Bookclub
      3. HermitCraft
  4. Create
    1. All spam channels are kept
    2. work-in-progress
  5. Games
    1. friend-codes
    2. gaming-general
    3. minecraft
    4. pinball
    5. players-wanted
  6. Joe Hills Meta
    1. Announcements
    2. Feedback-accessibility
    3. Feedback-everstorm
    4. Feedback-newsletter
    5. Feedback-structure
    6. Meeting-discussion
    7. Next-Quarter-New-Business
  7. Realms and servers (keep all)
  8. SMP categories and channels (keep all)
  9. Travel (rename to meet-ups, re-focus on individual event channels)

2. Discord Vacation Mode

As proposed in Newsletter #16, the Discord will go into vacation mode when Joe is traveling, setting many of the channels to read-only.

Here is the final mechanism for that:

  1. Vacation mode would start at least one day before I leave, and end at least one day after I return
  2. Set all channels to read-only except:
    1. #players-wanted
    2. #spam-servers-you-operate
    3. Minecraft Server channels
    4. Activity channels for events during that time (like Tommy running Gartic Phone)
    5. relevant travel channels (like, if we’re in vacation mode because I’m driving through Ohio, New York and Massachusettes, the meet-up channels for each stop would stay open)
    6. #live-event-chat (while streaming)
  3. Any issues that arose on the Minecraft Servers would be dealt with by server operators, and reviewed within a week of my return
  4. Any issues that arose on the activity channels would be the responsibility of the organizing staff member to address, and would be reviewed within a week of my return
  5. Any issues that arose on the travel channels  or #live-event-chat would be addressed by myself, as I’d be monitoring them to coordinate the meet-ups or during the streams

3. Modmail tutorial

Tommy has requested three hours to work on creating a text tutorial and a short video tutorial this month. I’ve approved that time.

4. Rules channel visibility

Per suggestion from Kindalas, the #rules channel has been renamed to #actual-rules. It has also been moved into the more prominent “All Specific Except for General” category.

Additions or changes to rules will be made in the #actual-rules channel, then  announced in the #announcement channel as well as the newsletter.

5. New rule explicitly prohibiting hate imagery and dog-whistles

Final text: “No creating or sharing imagery that has been co-opted by hate groups, such as swastikas or Pepe the frog.”

6. New rule prohibiting celebrations of bodily harm or death

Final text: “No celebrating the bodily harm or death of a real person.”

Minecraft Servers

Upcoming Petitions

Our next two server petitions sessions will be October 1st at 2pm US Central Time, and November 5th at noon US Central time.

Toxxic’s 1.19 Modded Server

Toxxic is still accepting feedback about his upcoming server launch in Realms and Servers > #modded-1dot19-fall-next.

The exact launch date is TBD, but our current plan is for Toxxic to turn over the config and mod list to me by the end of this month, so that I can have a version of the server ready for testing the first week of October.

Everstorm obituaries

  • NJ went spelunking underwater and drowned one block shy of air.
  • DottyMatrix, on a lovely tour of Castle Hohenzollern, stared death in the face… and its other face… and its third face.

Deep Slate Nine: Halloween Parade Float Contest

Congratulations again to Not Kansas, our victors in the B’hala build contest, who will be hosting the Halloween Parade Float build contest the last weekend of this month.

Exact time and date were TBD at time of printing, but I can announce that our in-studio guest judge will be BadgerSpanner! Update: October 29th, 2022 at 11am US Central time.

In terms of parade float size, each float must be 24 meters or less in length, and allow 8 meters of free space ahead of it.

There are only eleven spaces, so if you’d like to secure a spot, sign-ups will are now live in the Activity Sign-ups > #Oct-29-halloween-parade channel.

Weekly Pinball Tournaments

No Good Gofers results!

Congratulations to WrexVerdi for taking 1st place on No Good Gofers!

Leaderboard for No Good Gophers. 1: WrexVerdi. 2: forgantly. 3: Mr_Hardluck. 4: RIX513. 5: Laxmi13. 7: ButterflyGirlKMC. 8:Parker 9: NJCoffeeJunkie. 10: marwood7. 11: MisterLantz. 12: ChloeTGAP. 13: QueenDarkLady

This week: Tales of the Arabian Nights!

Our next table is Tales of the Arabian Nights, which features a spinning genie lamp! And a blue genie! It’s totally not licensed!

Meet-ups and Conventions

I still don’t have the details locked down for meet-ups during my October trip, but hope to have those ready to announce next newsletter. Thanks for your patience!

Upcoming conventions

Upcoming streams

As I’ll be traveling extensively next month, I’m going to try to cram extra bonus streams into my schedule whenever I can. Since the Royal Court has an irregular collab schedule, I won’t be able to commit to announcing those in advance, so thanks for your patience there.

Also, don’t tell anyone, but I’m kind of curious how long I can go without changing the stream title.

Until next time y’all…

Thanks again to ThatTommyBoii for helping compile this newsletter.

This is Joe Hills from Nashville Tennessee. Keep adventuring!

2022 Q3 Meeting Minutes

Meeting Purpose

  • Purpose of this meeting’s first item is the discord is getting too big and fickle to run
    • Every quarter we’ll have a quarterly meeting to decide if what we decided last meeting is viable
    • Give ample time for proposals to be addressed and for folks to weigh in
    • Even if not everything goes through everything gets to be considered
  • Anything not already on the agenda goes to next meeting

1. Discord channel pruning

    • Significant change, our discord has 100+ channels, has grown organically over 7 years, intimidating to new people, no good mechanism for adding/removing channels
    • Cull channels this month and review what are the needed channels in January
      • Joe requested Tommy begin the 2023 first quarter agenda and add the first two items, adding back any discord channels, and channel culling frequency. Tommy creates this.
      • Joe specifies that activity sign ups would remain as it currently functions, channels being created as needed for activities. No objections.
      • All specific except for general category, 911 emergency resources would remain as is.
        • Current events would also stay as it makes us unique as most other communities discourage political discussions, and Joe finds it high priority
        • Feels is experimental but we are still looking to keep it. A note is that the ability to send images would be removed.
          • The channels that would keep image sending capability would be channels that require it, such as spam-photos-you-snapped and collaborative channels such as the minecraft server channels
          • Joe states keeping the discord similar to older models such as forums keeps it runnable for him, as things being different from the norm is valuable for Joe
        • Identity is important to keep as it also is unique for us and encourages education and understanding.
          • Kindalas asks if the moderators feel comfortable with the Feels and Identity channels
            • Joe clarifies yes, but should they become an issue those channels would be placed into read only mode
          • Maahes says that he does not feel he has a strong identity to use the identity channel but has learned from those who do
          • Meep likes having identity makes them feel like they can express their identity that they can’t talk about anywhere else
          • TheQueenAsteri suggests combining Feels and Identity
          • Kindalas opposes
          • Joe explains that there is a difference in the spaces for somebody looking to talk about frustrations and somebody wanting to talk about identity
          • NJ also opposes as it would muddy the waters
          • Mantuamakers says people who want to speak about identity can feel safer with a reserved place rather than combined
        • DottieMatrix asks if Joe if the channels that dont specifically have to do with him be moved elsewhere or be made in other communities run by members of this community
          • Joe says yes, that this is something he is actively looking to encourage
        • Interior decorating is going away as it serves as a reminder to Joe for past plans not coming to fruition
        • Specific channels such as international emergency would be removed and discussion could be moved to current events or feels
        • The number one thing for Joe to keep, even with a theoretical 10x increase in members would be the live event chat channel as discussion in one chat (ie youtube or twitch) would get too large.
        • Small victories will definitely be kept as it genuinely helps folks to be able to post when they accomplish something.
        • Unrest would get a suggestion for replacement in January
        • Virtual cafe was created as a second general but is not needed. It can be revisited in January.
      • Animal crossing category is getting culled completely
      • Consume category
        • Book club will be kept
        • Food channel will be culled, it does not make the cut and will be revisited in January
          • Kindalas requests food be a small victories topic
            • Joe states its best to be revisited
        • Hermitcraft will be kept as it makes sense for there to be a place for HermitCraft fans to discuss content
        • Cultural channels (arts and entertainment) would be consolidated into one channel for things such as music, tv, dance, etc
      • Create category
        • The spam channels will be kept separate as different creations deserve their owns spaces to be viewed or posted
          • TheQueenAsteri feels that when photos are posted in the spam-photos channel they get drowned out by pet photos
            • Joe states that he doesn’t want to run a topic-specific community that is outside his expertise. 
            • If a differentiation could be provided in January’s meeting it could be revisited as Joe believes it is out of scope for today
          • Centuritron loves being able to post their crochet stuff
          • Misterlantz believes photos and art could be combined
            • Joe wants to protect the different arts
          • Kindalas states asking staff to differentiate between pet pictures and artistic pictures is a lot
            • Joe agrees and that’s why it may be revisited with framework in January
          • Meep explains worries about consolidating so many channels in terms of accessibility, a lot of issues comes from the screen reader not handling messages properly and causing a lot of trouble for them to stay chronological to the discussion
            • Joe states that is good feedback and greater reason to switch from discord to another platform, though that is out of scope for today’s meeting. He would like for Meep to provide alternatives that are more accessible.
            • Joe makes a note to review accessibility implications in the January meeting
        • Lets plays would be culled, Joe encourages community members who are fans of other series create their own spaces to discuss
        • Works in progress would be kept
        • Programming would be removed with revisit in January
        • Streaming/recording would be removed with revisit in January
        • Writing would be removed with revisit in January
      • Games category
        • Friend-codes would be kept
        • Minecraft would be kept
        • Pinball would be kept
        • Players wanted would be kept
        • All other channels in the games category would be removed
      • Joe Hills Meta category
        • Announcements would be kept
        • Feedback accessibility kept
        • Feedback everstorm kept
        • Feedback newsletter kept
        • Feedback structure kept
        • Meeting discussion kept
        • Next quarter new business kept
        • Rules would be kept
        • All other channels in the Joe Hills Meta category would be removed
          • Maahes suggests feedback structure be combined with next quarter new business
            • Joe disagrees
            • Tommy agrees with that disagreement
            • Xhille suggests having a feedback category in addition to the meta category
              • Joe declines
      • Realms and serves category channels would all be kept
      • SMP category channels would all be kept
        • Misterlantz asks if the -next channels need to be kept
          • Joe clarifies that those channels are consolidated when the servers go live
          • Misterlantz agrees but mentions there is 2022 experimental next and vanillish next
          • Joe agrees that the channels should be renamed to be feedback channels as they exist to give players a space to discuss changes for the servers
          • We will come back to this as Joe wishes to discuss it with the server operators
      • Travel category
        • Would be reduced to a meet-up channel and individual event channels
      • Tommy asks for clarification of when the channels would be culled and how, all at once or rolled out?
        • Joe specifies it would be culled on September 22nd as that is when vacation mode would be implemented
      • Misterlantz asked if when the channels are pruned would they be moved to the archived rooms category
        • Joe clarifies yes, culled channels would be moved there and everything being renamed would simply be renamed
      • ButterflyGirlKMC asks if there would be a general gaming channel
        • Joe clarifies no, discussion could be kept to general or if they wanted someone to play with that would go in players wanted
        • Mars states gaming is a core cultural value
        • TheQueenAsteri asks if gaming could go under arts/entertainment
        • Mars states it is too big a topic to be brushed into general
        • Centuritron states gaming general is nice to keep gaming in one place
        • Maahes is in favor of a general gaming channel to allow for space of culled channels such as animal crossing
        • Joe agrees that keeping gaming general would help measure scope for things in January

2. Vacation mode

    • Joe has needed a way to disengage from his work since 2008 and has not had that way.
      • Joe has dreaded taking time off as he feels like things would blow up without him
      • He would like to hire someone full time, such as Tommy on a salaried position, to be fully trained to take care of things.
      • We aren’t there yet and we will never get there at the current rate of things if Joe were to burn out.
      • Joe wants to make this all last, so the short term goal is for Joe to be able to have the discord “closed” when he goes on vacation.
        • It would begin at least one day before Joe leaves and end at least one day after his return
        • Anything that goes wrong would be reviewed the week after Joe returns from vacation
        • Channels would be set to read only except for spam servers you operate, the minecraft server channels, any activity channels, relevant travel channels, and live event chat for any streams
          • Joe adds on that players wanted could be kept open as well
      • Joe specifies it’s not the community’s fault, this was an issue before the discord was open
    • Joe will be traveling starting September 23rd until the end of October and this is the first good time to enable vacation mode
      • Consensus is that this is a necessary and good change for Joe to take to maintain good mental health
      • This means vacation mode will be activated September 22nd and end on October 31st
        • Kindalas asks if there would be no server petitions
          • Joe clarifies yes there will still be petitions, dates will be announced in Newsletter 21
        • Not Kansas’ Halloween parade build contest will also still occur, planned date is Sunday October 30th, the exact time TBD

3. Modmail tutorial

          • Tommy will create a modmail tutorial to explain what it is and when to use it and how

4. Rules channel

    • Make the rules channel easier to find
      • Joe asks if putting it in all specific category would suffice
        • Em agrees it’s easier to find there
        • Xhille says we could use bots to automate the process of new members reading and accepting the rules
          • Joe declines as this is not what he wants
        • Tommy suggests renaming the channel so it is higher in the alphabetic sorting of channels
          • Maahes suggested A list of rules
          • Kindalas suggests Actual Rules
            • Joe enjoys this proposal the most as it involves malicious compliance with community member’s requests
            • Rules channel was renamed to Actual rules and placed into all specific except for general category
      • Establishing staff and their roles is the next agenda item
        • Joe suggests he could draft that during his October break as he will have the time to create it then
          • Specifically in the times he is between trips
          • Scheduled for September 26th which is a Monday, Newsletter day
      • Notify current members of rule updates/changes
        • Joe states that we don’t really add rules often, and that a @everyone would not be needed as we would announce it in the appropriate channels and newsletter
        • Tommy agrees that an @ would not be needed
        • Folks seem fine okay with not requiring an @
      • Implement discord’s “start screen” feature
        • This feature is for public/community servers, we are unable to roll this out for our server as is.

5. Adding specific rule that disallows using media co-opted by hate groups

    • Community agrees we need to add that rule
      • Joe asks best way to implement it  without needed to constantly update rules
      • Tommy suggests a rule that gives pepe and swastikas as an example and ending it with etc to included items as needed
      • Xhille suggests linking a URL to a list of known hate imagery
        • This creates problems of people arguing what is and isn’t hate imagery
        • Tommy’s suggestion is accepted and will be added by release of Newsletter 21
      • Joe suggests also removing nitro ability to use custom emotes
        • Some community members seems saddened by loss but agree on it’s value

6. Adding specific rule that disallows celebratory messages or media as a response to a person’s death

    • Joe clarifies that he does not want to encourage any violent action but that also he doesn’t want to contribute to issues of aggressions or violent extremism
      • Joe opens the floor to a concise statement to be added to rules
        • Final wording is “No celebrating bodily harm or death of a real person”
      • This will also be added by release of Newsletter 21
      • Mantuamaker asks if there was room to discuss it if the person harmed was someone they knew and abusive
        • Joe clarifies that it would not be appropriate to celebrate here but rather in a private discussion.
        • Xhille says those examples can be discussed without being celebrated

Newsletter #20 for September 12th, 2022

Howdy folks!

It’s Tommy time! Community Liaison ThatTommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty! It’s always such a joy for me to be able to write to y’all, so let me get right into it!

Pinball FX3 Tournaments

Our weekly pinball tournaments continue on and everyone is killing it! It’s so awesome to see folks participating in such a fun game, let’s see how y’all scored!

Red and Ted’s Road Show

This table seemed like quite the trip! Congrats to Mr.Hardluck for the win with an insane 919 million score!

1st: Mr_Hardluck; 2nd: Forgantly; 3rd: WrexVerdi; 4th: ButterflyGirlKMC; 5th: marwood7; 6th: Joehills; 7th: Parker; 8th: Rix13

9th: NJ; 10th: Devi; 11th: Laxmi13; 12th: MisterLantz

Cirqus Voltaire

53 million points is nothing to joke about, another win for Forgantly shows he’s not clowning around!

1st: forgantly. 2nd: JoeHills. 3rd: WrexVerdi. 4th: NJCoffeeJunkie. 5th: RIX5.13. 6th: ButterflyGirlKMC. 7th: Parker. 8th: QueenDarkLady

9th: Laxmi13. 10th: Mr_Hardluck. 11th: MisterLantz. 12: Marwood7

This week’s table

If you’ve been reading this newsletter and have yet to join in the pinball fun what are you waiting for? Go-fer it! This week the table is No Good Gofers, you can find more information on how to compete in Activity-Sign-Ups > #weekly-pinball-challenges.

And if you’re not in Joe’s community discord, you can join us by supporting him on Patreon!

Fall Quarterly Meeting 2022

Those of you following the newsletters and announcements in the discord will know we’ve got some changes coming up. We’ve have a lot to discuss in our Fall Quarterly Meeting.

That’s going to be on this Saturday, September 17th, at 1pm US Central time.

Here’s our current agenda, if you have any items you’d like to request please do so in Joe Hills Meta > #next-quarter-new-business-requests. Thanks!

  1. Discord channel culling – Joe
  2. Discord vacation mode – Joe
  3. Modmail documentation and tutorial – Em and Dahlia
  4. Clarify rules and structure – Phali
    1. highlight rules channel
    2. establish staff and roles more clearly
    3. notify current members of rule updates/changes
    4. implement start screen to introduce rules
  5. Clarify what constitutes hate speech or images in rules – Maahes
  6. Formally add “no celebrating any deaths” to rules – Tommy

Minecraft Servers

There’s not too much to report on for some of the servers, but let’s check in anyways!

Deep Slate 9

The B’hala build contest was a huge success! There are some final parade dates that need to be finalized, so please be sure to check if your team has submitted your preferred holiday options! That would be under S9 Working Group Consolidation > #ds9-bhala-parades.

Some of the holidays taken include Halloween, Earth Day, and New Year’s, so y’all can look forward to plenty of parade building contests to come!

Modded 1.19 Fall

Our server operator ToxxicGlitter has been hard at work creating our next upcoming server! With the challenges faced with the experimental server, the community agreed to have our modded survival server move to be run by Toxxic! This is a great outcome, as he has proven his developmental skills by creating his own mods which will be featured on this server.

You can see the progress of this server in Realms and Servers > #modded-1dot19-fall-next

Vanillish

If DS9 is too busy or chaotic for you, and you want to stick with a vanilla server, I’d like to remind folks about our Vanillish server! This one is run by server operator Yirggzmb, and features a more comfortable and chill vibe.  Functions include keep inventory, a command to teleport to spawn, and other fun vanilla-adjacent features!

See what folks have been up to in Realms and Servers > #vanillish-general

August Everstorm Obituaries

Here’s the final roundup of obituaries from August’s Everstorm, rest in pieces everyone!

  • elimemeguy was slain by Zombie after a noble effort to survive until reset.
  • NJ nearly survived, but was smote by a smitten enderman.

August Everstorm Survivors

  • Wizardofdocs fought the End Wither with Void, got stuck on the dragon Island briefly, but brought home the beacon and moved into Void’s attic for a nice long nap
  • mercurialvoid brought a bit of spring into the ice waste, fought the Enderwither with Wizardofdocs, and bridged a thousand blocks for a final flight

September Everstorm Obituaries

  • QuiltyMel died to a Wither approximately 30 seconds after logging in for the first time.
  • Chefnutmeg died one island from spawn to a skelly while fleeing a wither skull
  • mercurialvoid ran into two withers and withered away in cleos gym
  • MisterLantz died to a pair of spiders while trying to flee a wither health bar

HermitCraft

There’s been two episodes of HermitCraft from Joe since the last newsletter, check them out!

Meet-ups and Conventions

Confirmed upcoming conventions

2022

2023

So long for now…

Thanks everybody for reading yet another one of my newsletters! I love getting to write these, I hope you love reading them!

As always I gladly accept feedback in  Joe Hills Meta > #feedback-newsletter channel.

This has been TommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty.

See you around!

Newsletter 19 for August 29, 2022

Howdy, y’all…

Joe Hills here, writing as I always do in Nashville, Tennessee.

The last few weeks have been trying for the Hermits and the broader HermitCraft community as we mourned the passing of our colleague and friend TinFoilChef.

Thank you so much to everyone who took time to remember TFC these last few weeks, and for y’all’s patience with the Hermits as we navigate tragic uncharted waters.

I personally believe that when someone who has touched our lives through their good works passes, a burden falls to us to attempt to carry on some small fraction of that good in how we live our own lives. While TFC’s impact on the world was great, he was loved by so many that I do not find that burden intimidating. Rather, I find it reassuring that such a large number of us will share it.

There is much to do, let us begin.

B’hala Build Contest Complete!

I was heartened greatly this weekend by the incredible and creative builds that our community collaborated on over the last two months around the Deep Slate Nine SMP’s temporal anomaly.

The builds were so competitive, I’m glad I didn’t have to choose between them. Thanks again to our three brilliant judges, M. Ebel, Janey Laney, and WesWilson for your insightful commentary and questions!

Results

As per tradition, the builds were ranked and given priority to select which upcoming holidays they might host parades for.

  1. Not Kansas: Halloween
  2. Earth Kingdom Outpost: Earth Day
  3. Team Radical: New Year’s
  4. Holland: Van Gogh’s birthday
  5. Team Gaymer: Pride (early June)
  6. KindaToxxic: GroundHog Day
  7. Team Blackwater: Kentucky Derby
  8. Team Shiny: Yuri’s Night
  9. Team Lotus: TBD
  10. Team Deztiny: National Intern Day
  11. Warden Hunters: Carl Garner Federal Lands Cleanup Day
  12. SCP: TBD

Thanks again to every team for all their hard work! Y’all really make this server vibrant and beautiful!

Pinball FX3 Tournaments

I’m also delighted to report that more folks have been coming together the last couple weeks to play in our pinball tournaments!

The last two tables we played were particularly fast and brutal, so for this week’s tournament I’m excited to shift gears with Red and Ted’s Road Show!

Road Show’s storyline involves traveling East to West across America, and it was intended to take all but the most skilled players more than three balls to complete. It was one of the first pinball machines to feature the ability to continue your progress by adding additional coins. As Pinball FX3 doesn’t support shoving coins into your computer, I’ve set this week’s tournament options to allocate each player nine balls instead of three. Hopefully this provides y’all a welcome break from the breakneck speed of the last couple tables.

Let’s see how y’all did on those!

Safecracker

This was a weird one, but thanks for giving it a try!

1st: Joe Hills; 2nd MisterLantz; 3rd forgantly; 4th ButterflyKMC; 5th Parker; 6th: NJ; 7th Phali; 8th devi

Whitewater Results

Congrats to Forgantly for taking the lead on WhiteWater with an impressive 126million!

1st place: Forgantly! 2nd: Mr_HardLuck; 3rd: JoeHills; 4th: WrexVerdi; 5th ButterflyGirlKMC; 6t:h Drewbacca81; 7th: NJ; 8th:Qwarkeh9th place: Parker; 10th: MisterLantz; 11th: RealPhali; 12th: Laxmi13; 13th: Marwood7; 14th: Badgerspanner

Hurricane Results

Double Congratulations to Forgantly for also winning last week’s Hurricane tournament with a score of 28million!

1st place: Forgantly; 2nd: WrexVerdi; 3rd: ButterflyGirlKMC; 4th Marwood; 5th: Laxmi13; 6th: Joe Hills; 7th: Parker; 8th: Mr_Hardluck; 9th RIX5.13; 10th: Devi; 11th: Qwarkeh; 12: MisterLantz; 13th: NJ; 14th: Real Phali; 15th: Drewbacca

Server Petitions

VODs and minutes for server petitions will henceforth be posted to a new website category: petitions!

This should make it easier for folks to find those documents without having to scroll through entire newsletters like this one. Here’s direct links to the last couple month’s entries:

Everstorm Server Obituaries

Final July Obituaries

  • SuperStone jumped after a skeleton into the void on his way to the dragon fight.
  • Lyric was not as prepared for the dragon fight as they thought they were.
  • Magenta felt the sweet embrace of the void after freeing the End

August Everstorm Obituaries

  • Magenta got cocky and thought she could beat the skeleton at its own game
  • RIP Haiden he died going very fast which is cool I guess
  • Chefnutmeg died to Skelly while setting up an outpost bolt hole

Upcoming September 17th 2022 Quarterly Meeting Agenda

  1. Discord channel culling – Joe
  2. Discord vacation mode – Joe
  3. Modmail documentation and tutorial – Em and Dahlia
  4. Clarify rules and structure – Phali
    1. highlight rules channel
    2. establish staff and roles more clearly
    3. notify current members of rule updates/changes
    4. implement start screen to introduce rules
  5. Clarify what constitutes hate speech or images in rules – Maahes

Meet-ups and Conventions

Confirmed upcoming conventions

2022

2023

Until next time, y’all…

Thanks as always to our Community Liaison ThatTommyBoii for helping me compile this week’s news!

Keep adventuring!

Petitions August 2022

Experimental

  • Maahes0 petitions regarding status of server and its replacement
    • Joe suggests that even though Decorative Blocks has just updated to 1.19, folks have been winding down their builds and avoided starting new ones, so it is a good time to spin up Toxxic’s new modded server anyway
    • There are no objections to continuing with the plan as laid out last month

Deep Slate Nine Vanilla SMP

  • Sami requests Allay Destroyer swords
    • Mardigan asks if it would suffice to simply break Meep’s spawner
    • Joe inquires about feasibility of killing only undesirable allays with commands
    • Kindalas: the only viable item to kill allays is Sharpness 25+ diamond swords
    • Joe awards four Sharpness 255 wooden swords to Sami, with instructions to destroy after cleaning up the allays
  • Kindalas requests Warden Hunters book back as it is the last copy
    • Joe returns it
  • Kindalas requests back-up copy of server for lag-busting
    • Joe agrees to hire Kindalas to both evaluate world download and write up analysis and process blog post for publishing on his website
  • Mardigan requests release Kevin
    • Joe presses the button
  • Kindals requests  petrified oak slabs be added to B’hala loot table
    • Joe agrees



Petitions July 2022

Experimental Server

  • Maahes0 mentions that the Decorative Blocks mod has had no signs of updating to future game versions, and asks if the server should be reset to 1.19
    • Joe states the original idea was the server would run until 3 months before this season of Hermitcraft ends.
    • This is now believed to be a bad idea
    • Joe suggests to decide in a month if the Experimental server should be restarted every time there is a new minecraft version, they kick mods they don’t like and add new mods they do
      • Maahes states we would need a nomination process for what mods to add and to consider how much time to allow for mods to come out
      • Joe states we could add mods as time goes on, just not remove them.
      • Joe gives until the end of August for people to consider the following: Toxxic takes the vision for his Fall SMP server and sees if it is compatible with the Experimental server player’s desires, and for Toxxic to take lead on it.
      • Maahes likes that idea as he was interested in Toxxic’s mod, Joe agrees
      • Toxxic states he likes the idea of running a modded server and using his mod as well
      • Joe renames tbd-fall-next to modded-1dot19-fall-next and puts Toxxic in charge of coordinating it.

Deep Slate Nine Vanilla SMP

  • Kindalas requests server votes be given 48 hours for those in different timezones be given appropriate time to participate and that we get 2 weeks of notice before server updates so people can have time for due diligence for mods and new version bugs
    • Joe states it wasn’t a planned vote, and more of a sanity check
    • Kindalas states it was presented as a vote, and proper labeling would help avoid that confusion
      • Mardigan mentions NJ was kicked mid-stream due to updates
      • Joe mentions that it has happened to him on HermitCraft and a server that is dedicated for streamers for uptime and quality would be something to be workshopped as another patreon tier
  • Kindalas requests discussing the expectations of update timelines at the next quarterly meeting
    • Joe states DS9 updates as soon as possible, the Vanillish server updates in 2 weeks depending on the creative lead, and the modded server going forward resets each new game version and the Everstorm server only updates on monthly refresh.
    • Joe feels this is part of the value of the Vanillish server, and the problem is people would rather play on DS9 than Vanillish
    • Joe suggests having another server be the flagship server come next HermitCraft season, as he doesn’t want to change things from being a server that stays up to date with the latest minecraft versions
      • Kindalas states there is room to discuss this at the quarterly business meeting
      • Joe states that he is not at a place to commit to a 48 hour window
      • Kindalas suggests being able to warn Joe about updates that are game-breaking
      • Joe states he was not concerned about long term security risks with the release of 1.19.1 and was prepared to update the server again if it warranted that
  • Maahes0 mentions an issue with players being given 5 seconds to get to a safe place for a server reset in place of a minute
    • Joe agrees there should be the minute, but he would not give more time than that
  • NJ requests for Joe to help her finish organizing her shulker monster
    • Joe denies, but grants NJ 4 allay spawn eggs to pay people with to help instead
  • Joe mentions that in terms of creative frustration the HermitCraft server doesn’t rollback so it can give folks confidence that the work they have done won’t get undone.
    • CaseWalker states that this update felt rushed and more controversial and potentially damaging than any other updates
      • Joe agrees and states that if we genuinely wanted to not rely on Microsoft we would have to fund other projects such as MineTest so we would have our own Minecraft to not worry about Microsoft changing things on.
      • Kindalas states that sounds like a waste of time, money, and effort and defeats the purpose of playing minecraft
      • Joe agrees and states that if we don’t agree with moving to our own sources then we need to agree with relying on Microsoft, though it makes him nervous to be dependent on them.
      • Joe mentions that the last creator summit had only talked about this update and not about future updates, and is worried they don’t know what direction they are heading in
      • Kindalas suggests instead of decoupling from Minecraft to just not update in the future
      • Joe states that he feels he is in a unique position to wrangle building an open source Minecraft alternative, and that anyone could run an old version of Minecraft
  • Mardigan requests the B’hala anomaly be reset soon
    • Joe agrees for it to be reset but is not sure of when
  • Mantuamaker requests unbreakable leather hats for the baby zombies in the Not-Kansas outpost. Granted
  • Mantuamaker requests their B’hala loot item be red leather boots. Granted
  • Phali requests for Long Norway to be recognized as an outpost and given a channel.
    • StellarSpider objects as Long Norway is on team Holland’s ground
      • Phali objects to this as Holland wasn’t even aware of this until team Redstone had mentioned it
    • Joe adds Long Norway to Holland’s channel to officially recognize them
  • 5th_Alice requests their Bhala loot item be a strong shovel. Granted
  • Kindalas requests reinforced deepslate be added to the Bhala loot tables. Granted
  • Maahes requests the creative light block be added to the Bhala loot tables. Granted
  • Toxxic requests team Redstone be renamed to team Kinda Toxxic
    • 5th_Alice objects
    • Joe grants the request
  • VeryLukely requests to be exiled into the world so they could work their way back from scratch. Granted

Newsletter 18 for August 8th, 2022

Howdy, y’all! Joe Hills here…

I’m writing to y’all as I always do from Nashville, TN!

Stream schedule for this week!

Now that school has started here in Nashville, I am feeling more confident about pre-announcing my stream schedule for the week!

All times U.S. Central!

All streams on my twitch and YouTube.

Some bonus streams may be added on-the-fly as my schedule allows.

Monday, August 8th

  • 1pm: HermitCraft 9 bonus stream
  • 8:30pm: HermitCraft 9 live!

Wednesday, August 10th

  • 8:30am: Crafts with ZombieCleo and special guest JaneyLaney!

Thursday, August 11th

  • 8:30pm: HermitCraft 9 live!

Friday, August 12th

  • 8:30am: HermitCraft 9 live! Special morning edition!

Saturday, August 13th

Sunday, August 14th

  • 8:30pm: HermitCraft 9 live!

Pinball FX3 weekly challenge!

This week: SafeCracker

This week’s game is a Pat Lawler-designed weird one!

This table has a narrow body, timed play, and a board game in the back glass which you can win to earn a token that unlocks the special multi-ball mode.

I hope you give it a try! Details are in Activity Sign-Ups > #weekly-pinball-challenge

Champion Pub results

Congratulations once again to Forgantly for taking 1st place in our Champion Pub tournament!

Here’s the full results:

A screenshot of the Pinball FX3 tournament leaderboard with results for Champion's Pub. 1st place: Forgantly. 2nd place: ButterflyGirlKMC. 3rd place: Devi. 4th place: Joe Hills. 5th place: Parker. 6th place: MisterLantz. 7th place: NJCoffeeJunkie. 8th place: Kindalas

MineCraft servers!

Everstorm: The Reef 2 closing tomorrow!

No obituaries from the second Reef this week—but there’s still a day left!

Tomorrow, I will be taking down the Reef map and replacing it with something cool our Community Liaison ThatTommyBoii has sculpted for us. Keep an eye out for the creation of the Realms and Servers > #Everstorm-August channel!

Vanillish petitions this afternoon!

Our Creative Lead for the Vanillish Server, Yirrgzmb will be hosting her first round of petitions, today, Monday, August 8, 2022 at 5:00 PM US Central time!

If you’re active on that server or considering giving it a try, pop in!

August 27th B’hala build contest: two of three guest judges announced!

One of the greatest joys in my work is introducing creative and talented people and witnessing the brilliance of their interactions. Our first two guest judges are special folks, and I’m fortunate they agreed to join us!

The judges and I will visit each outpost, moving clockwise, with the first outpost to be selected by dice-roll at the kick-off of the event.

Each outpost will have the opportunity for a representative to join the judges and I on voice chat and present their work.

Where’s the outline of the July DS9 and Experimental petitions?

Due to the whirlwind of activity here for the kick-off of the school year, I forgot to delegate creating the petitions outline to Tommy last week. I’ve done so now, and it will be included next week. In the meantime, the VOD is still available here.

Meet-ups and Conventions

I’m making progress coordinating a series of meet-ups in both Ohio and Boston during my October road trip! Announcements to come as I confirm locations and times with the venues.

Confirmed upcoming conventions

2022

2023

Until next time, y’all…

I appreciate our Community Liaison ThatTommyBoii helping me compile this week’s news.

Please feel free to leave your feedback in Joe Hills Meta > #feedback-newsletter!

Keep adventuring!